A bench
Real hardware, real tools, real room to break things. You build with your hands, not in a slide deck.
→01 — For Builders
We hand you
the keys.
The fastest person in the room shouldn’t have to ask permission. Here, you don’t.
02 — Why This Exists
Built to end the
permission problem.
You’ve spent your career being the one who actually ships while everyone else theorizes — and you’ve spent it asking permission for work you could have finished already. Darst is the lab built to end that. We hire the mind, not the résumé, then we get out of its way. The problems are the ones other labs won’t touch, and the people beside you are the ones most labs can’t land. We’re pre-revenue, no track record, and we refuse to fake one — because the only thing worth joining is the real one.
03 — The Keys Are Real
Autonomy you can
actually use.
A budget
The resources to chase the idea, not a request form to justify it. We back the build before we ask for the proof.
→The call
The authority to make the decision. No committee stands between a good idea and the field.
→The cadence
Loops measured in weeks, not quarters. You learn in the field, fast, and you never wait for permission to iterate.
→04 — The Problems
Build what
they’d shelve.
The idea too strange for a committee is the one we hand you a bench and a budget to prove. We chase the hard robotics problem and let the industries come to it — perception where GPS and cameras go blind, arms that snake where rigid robots can’t reach, machines that stay planted on broken ground, autonomy bolted onto the equipment the world already runs. Here, your imagination sets the ceiling — nothing else does.
PerceptionContinuum ArmsLegged PlatformsRetrofit AutonomyFirst Principles05 — The Room
The peers most labs
can’t land.
We don’t claim a roster — we hold a bar. We hire for the top of the craft: the minds other labs can’t get, on the problems other labs won’t touch. The point isn’t to be surrounded by people who agree with you — it’s to be surrounded by people good enough to make you better. You don’t just hire in here. You get sharper. Every build makes the next one easier, and the builder behind it better.
SELECTIVE INTAKE // SIGNAL OPEN
Show us your
06 — The Honest Deal
Show us your
best work.
No résumé required — link the project, the repo, the build you’re proudest of, and tell us what you’d want to build here. We’re pre-revenue and selective; the bar that gets you in is the same one that gets most people a no. For the builders at the core, the deal is mutual — your imagination and our keys, your growth and a real stake in what you make. Never the other way around.